The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier has insisted that the Irish backstop must remain credible in any Brexit deal.

Speaking in the European parliament in Strasbourg, he said “we regret profoundly” the Commons vote on Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement after two years of negotiation “based on the red lines of the British government”.

Nathalie Loiseau, the Europe minister, told France Inter this morning: “It’s bad news, because this withdrawal agreement negotiated for nearly two years is a good agreement and the only agreement possible. It’s for the British to decide what they want. We see there is no majority for this agreement, but we don’t know what there IS a majority for… they want to leave the European Union to do what?”

Asked why leaving the EU was proving so difficult, Loiseau said: “A certain number of British, including British politicians, didn’t realise what being a member of the EU meant.” She added that there had been “massive disinformation” during the referendum campaign.

Can the agreement be renegotiated? “The text cannot be reopened especially after we’ve gone 17 months with all the coming and going. It’s been one third of my work since I became minister, which is a bit excessive, and we have other things to do in Europe than busy ourselves with a divorce …”

She added: “Nobody thinks a no deal is a good situation, but we are preparing for that”, but warned: “We aren’t going to unknit the European Union because the UK wants to leave.”

Sophie in ‘t Veld, a deputy leader of the liberal group in the European parliament, is sticking to the Brussels line that this crisis is for the UK to sort out.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, she said: “We got a lot of questions last night saying ‘what is the EU going to do now?’. Well, all the options have been on the table, it is for the UK now to decide what to do. I would strongly recommend all the parties to come together and unite in the interest of the UK.”

Asked if she would prefer if the UK remained in the EU, she said:

We never wanted the UK to leave, so if they come to that conclusion then we will be very happy, but it is not for us to say, it is for the British people to say.

But it will have to be a realistic, a workable solution, one that is taking into account the current arrangements within the EU, the Good Friday agreement, and the rights of citizens – the 3.5 million Europeans living in the UK and the 1.5 million British people living in the EU 27.

Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, says the ball is in Britain’s court to bring clarity to the chaos.

“The MPs of the lower house have not made it known what they want, only what they don’t want,” he told the broadcaster Deutschlandfunk this morning.

“That is not enough,” he said. He added he did not support the idea of renegotiating the deal, saying that many compromises had already been made by both sides. “If one had been able to offer more, we would have had to do that weeks ago.”

He said the German government would follow closely the vote of confidence in Theresa May, but her fall would make the situation only more complicated.

“For the negotiations we need a stable government,” he said. Extending article 50 would be complicated in the light of upcoming European elections, he said, and anyway, an extension would require a clear idea as to what London wanted.

“It will only make sense if there’s a way which has as its goal to reach a deal between the EU and Britain and at the moment there’s not a majority viewpoint in the British parliament”.

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has again ducked the question of whether the Labour frontbench will back a second referendum. He insisted it was for Labour’s membership to decide.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said: “If we secured a general election, our party then would have to decision about what goes into the manifesto. There is strong support that if there is an impasse we go back to the people. Our preference is a general election, if we get, there is also that view that there should be another referendum.

“”My view is that it will be decided by the democratic wishes of our party members. The options will be: we put forward our own proposals on a deal, or you put forward those plus the possibility of a referendum.

“What went through our Labour party conference last year was: seek to get a deal that protects jobs and the economy, if you can’t do that, then it’s a referendum to ask people to think again. I think if we do move to a general election that that the sort of debate that we will have.”

McDonnell insisted a compromise deal could be reached with the government.

My own view is that Theresa May could sort this now. If she had a real discussion, a real approach to compromise bring all the parties together I think there could be a compromise most probably on the basis of what Labour is advocating. But the problem that she’s got is that I don’t think people have any faith in her anymore to deliver that.

Clearly extending article 50 is now on the agenda but that is for the government to decide.

He appeared to concede that it was unlikely that the government would lose today’s confidence vote. “People don’t expect us to win that, but who can tell?”

He added:

If that goes down, parliament really has to take a strong role … proper negotiations and discussions to see if there is a compromise that can be reached. Theresa May has said she is willing to enter into those discussions, but she hasn’t said she is willing to enter into them with Jeremy Corbyn. She has not contacted us.

We haven’t been invited into those discussions yet. Then she’s set conditions, she’s ruling out by the looks of it a customs union which most of the opposition parties support.

We believe we should have a permanent customs union. The relationship with the single market should be a close and collaborative relationship.

The Labour MP Chuka Umunna has been on Good Morning Britain, arguing that Britain needs to get more time to “prevent ourselves falling off a cliff”.

He says if the no-confidence motion fails today, Labour should immediately back calls for a second referendum, though as Piers Morgan points out, this is going to be difficult given “Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t want to do that”.

Chuka Umunna (@ChukaUmunna)

With just 37 sitting days until exit day, there is absolutely no time to waste. If the no confidence motion today fails, we must move to the next stage of the @UKLabour conference motion and immediately back a #PeoplesVote as the way to stop no deal and resolve this. https://t.co/8UxyFzQXaX

@MsKateLyons CCTV (China Central TV) news website has this report, with the unimaginative headline 英国“脱欧”协议草案遭议会否决 (Britain’s Brexit rejected by government). I was hoping for something more exciting but CCTV never fails to let me down. pic.twitter.com/dFGLqXuBsx

The issue of low-level letter boxes will also be discussed in parliament today. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

Quite a few questions and witticisms coming in about the fact that also on the parliamentary agenda today is a 10-minute motion on the prohibition of low-level letter boxes.

There is some irony in this issue being debated today, as this is about trying to get European standards to be added to UK Building Regulations. European standards require letterboxes to be between 70cm and 1.7m from the ground, thus reducing the risk of back injuries and risk of dog bite for postmen and women.

The Communications Union have this summary of the issue, which they say they have been trying to get change on for years.

The Communications Workers Union has been campaigning to outlaw low level letterboxes for many years. The CWU has been striving for the European Standard (EN13724) to be added to UK Building Regulations – this requires that letterboxes should be positioned at a suitably accessible height, accessible to postal delivery workers, significantly reducing possible injuries such as, dog bites, fingers being trapped or back strain caused when bending excessively to reach ground level boxes…

The problem with low level letter boxes is that back injuries to postmen and women occur each year in Royal Mail and delivering to low level letter boxes at the base of a house front door forces postal staff to stoop to ground level repetitively to deliver mail items which can cause or exacerbate back strain and back conditions. Low level letter boxes also present an increased risk of dog bites when the mail is pushed through the aperture at ground level and fingers get trapped.

In 2002 the European Standard EN 13724 was introduced and states that for “ergonomic and safety reasons” the centre line of the letter box aperture should be at a height between 700 mm (2ft 3.5 inches) and 1700mm (5ft 7inches).

For some reason, the debate about car production in Solihull, currently slated for after the no-confidence vote, hasn’t generated quite the same interest as the letter boxes, though there are some who are keen.

I am very interested to see how the news of the Brexit deal defeat was covered in newspapers around the world, so tweet me (@mskatelyons) with photos or screenshots of the front pages from wherever you’re reading from (and with English translations if you can!).

Here are a few from around Europe. I’d like to particularly draw your attention to the headline on the dispatch from London by the reporter for Le Monde, whose story is headlined: “At St Stephen’s Tavern, shouts of victory, lukewarm beer and uncertainty for pro-Europeans”. Some stereotypes never die.

Kate Lyons (@MsKateLyons)

I am loving the headline on the colour dispatch from London for Le Monde. Headline: “At St Stephen’s Tavern, shouts of victory, lukewarm beer and uncertainty for pro-Europeans”. pic.twitter.com/W2kZmNVqUk

“Shot down” – Spiegel Online’s online splash. The German paper says: “It could hardly have been worse for her: The British parliament is preparing a historical defeat for Theresa May and her Brexit deal. Does she have to go now?” pic.twitter.com/evt82iN8Va

Writing in the Spanish daily El País, Lluís Bassets warned that Tuesday’s vote had been far from decisive, despite the scale of May’s defeat.

“To the misfortune of the British, and perhaps also the Europeans, this Tuesday was a historic day that does not preclude more historic days, all accompanied by the tragic storm clouds that tend to shadow history,” he wrote.

Bassets said “the great shredding machine that is Brexit” was still hard at work, “fed by uncertainty, bitterness and rancour – the three dismal feelings that May evoked in her defeat speech, and the three evil spirits that only grow with each day that Brexit remains unresolved”.

El Mundo’s main headline on Wednesday morning was equally gloomy: “A humiliating defeat for May leaves Brexit in limbo”. The prime minister’s plan, it added, had “crashed spectacularly” in parliament.

In an editorial, the rightwing ABC said that as neither May nor parliament had shown themselves capable of dealing with the crisis, the matter should be put to the people once more.

“It seems clear that the moment has arrived to put the decision in the hands of the people, and the most sensible thing to do would be hold another referendum just as voters get to grips with the true arguments rather than just the nationalist-populist propaganda of the pro-Brexit lobby.”

The online paper eldiario.es noticed that Michael Gove had invoked the famous Game of Thrones line, “Winter is coming”.

“He was one of the heavyweights in the party that had the most influence in the Brexit referendum,” wrote Iñigo Sáenz de Ugarte.

“Gove and others like him brought winter to British politics and are now horrified at how cold things have got. Too cold for their fellow countrymen.”

Dominic Grieve, former attorney-general and advocate of a second referendum, will present two bills to parliament tomorrow regarding another referendum on the subject of “the United Kingdom’s future relationship with the European Union”. This will happen after urgent questions and before business of the House and before business of the House and the vote on the no-confidence motion.

Kate Lyons (@MsKateLyons)

Dominic Grieve will present two bills to the House tomorrow about a second referendum on leaving the EU. pic.twitter.com/JIyxKic0B4

The Guardian features a rare picture of the no lobby, which is packed with MPs walking through it to vote against May’s Brexit deal. The headline is “May suffers historic defeat as Tories turn against her”

The Guardian (@guardian)

The Guardian front page, Wednesday 16 January 2019: May suffers historic defeat as Tories turn against her pic.twitter.com/CFcSyQeL4k

In case you’re wondering what the former prime minister of Australia Tony Abbott thinks of the day’s Brexit events, he has tweeted to let you know, asking “What’s wrong with no deal?”

The self-described Anglophile, who studied at Oxford and began his own downfall in Australian public opinion by reinstating the knighthood system in Australia, also posted a link to his Spectator piece on the subject. The article was published just after Christmas and was the magazine’s fourth most-read story of the year, and in it he argues that a no-deal Brexit is the way to go, saying that “if Europe knows what’s in its own best interests”, it would maintain entirely free trade and full mutual recognition of standards right across Europe and offer protection to British citizens living in Europe, if the UK makes similar overtures to the EU.

Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR)

What’s wrong with no deal? Australia does $100 billion a year in trade with the EU without a deal https://t.co/gcWAgdCSn3

The current prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, said the vote against May’s Brexit deal highlighted global uncertainty.

“It does highlight the impacts of global uncertainty in the economy,” he told Sky News Australia. “We are already seeing some real tensions when it comes to trade. In 2019, the global economy is facing more uncertainty than it was this time last year.”

How did the markets react?

The comprehensive defeat of Theresa May’s Brexit vision subdued markets in Asia, with sterling expected to remain volatile until the result of Wednesday’s no-confidence vote in the prime minister is known.

Sterling sunk to trading at $1.2855 on the dollar early on Wednesday, having steadied after a tumultuous overnight session. May’s crushing loss on Tuesday night and looming no-confidence vote triggered political upheaval that meant investors paused to assess their next options, putting pressure on UK-focused exchange-traded funds. A Tokyo-traded FTSE 100 ETF was down about one percent on Wednesday.

“While the margin of May’s loss was a surprise, the defeat itself was something the market had been pricing in for a long time and it appears that participants covered shorts in the pound after the vote,” said Yukio Ishizuki, senior currency strategist at Daiwa Securities.

Well, the news just keeps on coming. After a crushing, humiliating, historic (pick your adjective, all of them were used on the papers’ front pages today) defeat for May in the “meaningful” vote on her Brexit deal yesterday, she is gearing up for the next challenge: a vote of no confidence, which will be held this afternoon.

The vote will take place sometime this afternoon, after a ten minute rule motion on the subject of low-level letter boxes and before an adjournment debate on car production in Solihull. By that time, Andrew Sparrow will be back with you, carefully guiding you through the day’s political news.

But for the next few hours, I’ll be bringing you news and updates as they come in. Feel free to get in touch via email (kate.lyons@theguardian.com) or on Twitter.

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